Expat and travel blog featuring stories on living overseas destinations, as well as some stuff on the expat blogosphere too.

06/18/2013

Expats in India

India may not have the largest land mass of any counrty in the world, but it surely must match any other nation for sheer diversity. And with over 1.2 thousand million people living in the country, it's of course also the second most populous country after China. And many projections indicate that it will overtake its near neighbour to become the world's biggest population by as soon as 2028.

There are around 32,000 British people living in India - according to the the BBC's Brits Abroad interactive guide, which is based on data from the Institute for Public Policy research (IPPR) although I'm pretty sure this figure comes from about six or seven years ago, so the number of UK nationals residing in the country may well have changed a bit since then. My guess would be that expat numbers have probably risen a bit over the last half decade due to the whole BRICs economies phenomenon and resulting inward investment there.

There's a good range of expat blogs on the subject of life in India - but as mentioned above the country's so big that no single blog could really give a general view of the expat experience there. For instance if you had a Belgian blog where the blogger was located in, say, Liège, then reading it a lot of the social and cultural stuff would be useful to you even if you were heading to Brussels. But reading about life in one area of India where the langauage and life is different to another area and it's almost like different countries in some senses. For instance, according to this healthcare guide to the country, the medical facilities in the cities are generally good but finding adequate facilities in rural India can be difficult.

One of the more interesting blogs on Indian expat life I've found recently was Chai A Cup of Life - it's about an Australian expat who moved to India when her husband was offered a job in New Delhi. Blog owner Amelia states on the intro page of the blog that:

At first I was extremely resistant on living here. I felt frustrated & that all the comforts of my life that I had in Australia were gone. Fortunately, I have now realised how lucky I am to be here and see this as a way where I can learn, grow & experience new things.

And it's interesting in that after spending a lot of time in India, the blogger reports a 'reverse culture shock' effect on going back to Australia. Check out the blog - well worth a read!